“Gospel Hymns No. 2: as used by them in gospel meetings” (1876) by P. P. Bliss and Ira D. Sankey was a hymn book owned by Harriet Tubman. Her copy (pictured) is now in Washington, DC at the National Museum of African American History and Culture (NMAAHC), the Black history museum of the Smithsonian, the nation’s attic.
Harriet Tubman was the most famous conductor of the Underground Railroad, helping hundreds of runaway slaves reach freedom from 1849 to 1860.
Piety: She was also a devout Christian who loved to sing. But, according to the Harriet Tubman Historical Society, it was more than mere piety or love of song:
“Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” was one of her favourites. It was sung at her funeral. The Society says it was used in slave times to say the Underground Railroad (“sweet chariot”) was coming south (“swing low”) to take a slave to freedom (“carry me home”). Since the Railroad was secret and few Blacks could read, coded songs were needed for its operation, like “Go Down Moses”, “Steal Away”, “Follow the Drinking Gourd”, and “In Wade the Water”. Songs were used even in place of maps. Teaching Blacks to read was outlawed in many states to prevent runaway slaves and slave uprisings. So songs became all the more important.
The hymnal has 112 pages with 132 songs, both words and music. She could not read or write, at least not for most of her life, so presumably the songs would have been read or sung or played for her.
Pious fable? Even though she could not read, “The Smithsonian’s History of America in 101 Objects” (2013) by Richard Kurin says the book falls open to certain songs more easily than others, among them “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot”. Lonnie Bunch, the founding director of NMAAHC (now the head of the Smithsonian as a whole), told “60 Minutes” that the hymnal has that song and “Steal Away”.
Huh?
That same edition of the hymnal is online at hymnary.org. It has pictures of its pages and a list of its songs. Neither “Steal Away” nor “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” appear. Nor any of the other Underground classics for that matter. At least not under the titles given here. It does have “Amazing Grace”, “Onward Christian Soldier” and stuff like that.
“Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing” does appear in the book, a song that has appeared on this blog as a favourite of Olaudah Equiano. He was a slave and abolitionist in the 1700s, famous for his autobiography.
On the inside cover of the hymnal is her name where it says “Harriet Tubman Davis Book” (Davis was the name of her second husband):
Some say it is her handwriting, but others say she never learned to write, not even later in life.
The hymnal comes down to us by way of Meriline Wilkins, Tubman’s great-great-niece who died at age 92 in 2008. My own grandfather was alive at the same time as Harriet Tubman, who died in 1913. It was not so long ago as people think.
– Abagond, 2022.
Source: 60 Minutes (2.5 minutes), hymnary.org, Harriet Tubman Historical Society, Smithsonian magazine (2010); “The Smithsonian’s History of America in 101 Objects” (2013) by Richard Kurin.
See also:
- hymnary.org: Gospel Hymns No. 2 – has screen shots of the pages
- abolitionists
- The Underground Railroad
- songs
- NMAAHC
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Abagond 
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